1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of operating a computer to enable a user to cause the copying of a data item from a first set of data to a second set of data. The method results in the computer providing a user with a graphical user interface and has particular utility in relation to methods of operating a computer to provide a tool for updating a database.
2. Related Art
It is now common for computer programs to control a computer to provide the user with a so-called graphical user interface. The graphical user interface provides a two-way interaction. In a first part of the interaction, the computer generates a display which includes graphical elements which represent data stored by the computer or actions that can be carried out by the computer. In a second part of the interaction, the user uses a marker control device to position a marker displayed on the screen. By positioning the marker over the various graphical elements included in the display and operating the marker control device and/or other input devices, the user is able to indicate which data he wishes to manipulate and how he wishes to manipulate it.
Some computer programs (e.g. Microsoft® Excel 97 SR-1) are executable to provide a graphical user interface which enables the user to copy a plurality of data items to a corresponding plurality of storage fields. The user can cause such copying to take place by operating one or more input devices firstly to select a group of data item representations, then to move those representations to storage field representations and finally to indicate that the intended destination has been reached. However, copying a selected subset of a group of data items to respective members of a group of storage fields requires many user operations of the input device(s). There is therefore a need to operate a computer so as to allow a user to copy selected data from one set of memory locations to another set more quickly than has hitherto been possible.